


The Five Days of Arashi Christmas

by orphan_account



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-03
Updated: 2010-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-13 12:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino isn't terribly keen on the idea of spending five days with his group, but there are worse things than bonding, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Five Days of Arashi Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Matilde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matilde/gifts).



> Dear Matilde, I hope you enjoy this. Without a concrete pairing to go off of, I erred on the side of gen, because pairings can be a tricky subject in this fandom. I do hope that this is fluffy enough for you, and that you have fun reading it. I hope you don't mind the kouhai!cameo. <3 Much thanks to my beta J for all her hard work. (And Matilde- I hope you know there is a very large fandom for JE on Livejournal if you would like to find more fic. :D)

Nino stared at the contract in his hands. It was typed up all official-like; J&A letterhead, logo stamped in with raised edges, and one of those "signature copies" at the bottom featuring Julie's looping scrawl. It didn't really make the content of the letter any less annoying, nor did it make it go away, and Nino had already moved onto his second hope that perhaps glaring at it long enough would burn a hole clean through the paper.

It didn't seem to be working.

"But, Countdown is a big deal," Jun was saying, behind the lenses of some expensive-looking designer sunglasses. "I don't know if we have this much time before it."

"This really is asking for an awful lot of us," Sho added.

Nino just kept glaring at the contract as if it was behind all of his problems with the world (which it very well might be, once he stopped to think about it). He largely ignored the conversation around him until Ohno leaned over and poked him in the arm once, just enough to startle him out of his reverie.

"Kazu-chan," Ohno said.

"Yeah, I know," Nino sighed. He set the paper down next to the water bottle he'd been taking small sips from for the past half hour, biting down on his lower lip a bit. "It's important, blah blah blah, we should do this because the network wants to see it, blah blah, Julie says we have to so there isn't much use protesting..."

Ohno cocked his head to one side a bit, scanning over the writing again (and no doubt tripping over some of the more complicated kanji- Nino would probably have to help him out with it later). "I think maybe it'll be fun," he said, slowly.

"But I have obligations with ZERO," Sho said. "I can't just take off for five days to be transplanted to- wait, where did it say we were going again?"

"Hokkaido," Jun replied. He made a face that looked like someone had added way too much wasabi to his sushi.

Sho's face got even paler, though he set the contract down on the table and folded his hands over the top of it. "Right. Hokkaido. I just don't think that we, at this busy point in our careers and our time as a group, can afford to take this much time off to do a filming-"

"But it'll be fun, right?" Aiba said. He seemed to be the only one- minus Ohno, who was still trying to read the nuances of the contract with his brow slightly furrowed- who was really excited about the prospect.

Nino wondered if someone had spiked the man's tea that morning.

"Five days," Jun repeated, jabbing a finger down onto the paper. "Five days, Aiba."

"Maybe we should all look at it on the bright side," Aiba said. "We get to be together, and we get to have all our expenses paid, and we get to- what did this say?" He picked up the instructions again, scanning quickly. "...'plan a group activity of our choice, allowing us to bring one guest to assist.'"

"Who is going to be available that close to New Year's?" Sho wondered aloud. "And at such late notice, too?"

Nino stood up, and his knees smacked against the bottom edge of the table top, which smarted. He bit back the expletive.

"Where are you going?" Jun demanded.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch," Nino said. "I'm going to try and find some booze."

Aiba frowned at him over the brightly colored bottle tops. "Booze isn't going to help the situation, Nino-chan."

"No, but it will make me feel better about having to miss the glamorous parties I was invited to," Nino replied.

Jun gave a little snort, which he didn't bother to disguise. "Your LAN parties don't count as 'glamorous', Ninomiya."

"Shut up," Nino told him cheerily, and lobbed his water bottle cap at him.

\--

One week later, Nino found himself standing by the others just outside the bus that had transported them from the airport. He'd brought the warmest coat he could find in his closet and while he'd initially thought that the thing was pretty warm, it was becoming rapidly apparent that it was actually just scraps of fabric masquerading as down feathers. It did nothing to stop the harsh wind from sending shivers all the way down his spine.

"Nrgh," he grumbled, when Aiba's arm went around his shoulders in an obvious gesture of camaraderie.

"Hokkaido!" the other man enthused, pumping one fist in the air. "Look at all the snow!"

Nino didn't want to look at the snow. Nino wanted to be wrapped up in a blanket in his apartment playing the newest Harvest Moon game on his DS. He said as much, hoping it would make Aiba's irritating excitement go away; at least that would make staring out at the bleary rolling dunes of snow a little less horrible.

As usual, the tactic failed to have the desired effect.

"Nonsense!" Aiba said, and tugged Nino closer. "Think of all the awesome things we get to do! Sipping hot chocolate by the fireplace, making snow angels in the yard..."

"Dying of hypothermia," Nino grumbled.

Jun- who was wearing quite possibly the largest, puffiest coat that Nino had ever seen in his life- pulled a knit cap over his head. It didn't quite cover his ears all the way, but it was probably better than nothing, which is what Nino had. He really should have brought more cold-weather gear with him.

"Alright, guys," Jun said. He picked up his matched luggage set and headed off towards the cabin that NHK had 'rented' for them for the duration of the filming. "Let's just get inside, it's freezing out here."

Nino had hoped that the sight of their lodgings would dampen Aiba's enthusiasm.

"Oh, man!" Aiba sighed. His arm still hadn't fallen from its place around Nino's shoulders. "Doesn't this look amazing?"

To be honest, Nino thought the place looked like it was about to fall down, and he doubted if there was any real insulation in the walls. But there wasn't much he could do when management had said that, in no uncertain terms, they were doing this as a favor to show appreciation for how much they'd gotten that year.

He stomped across the snow to the front door of the lodge, and followed Sho inside. There was a large living room with a fireplace there, and a small kitchen just off to the side with an island counter big enough to prepare food on. There was a kotatsu near the far wall, nestled into the corner, and a few couches near the brick of the fireplace itself. Off from the main room were five small doorways, and a larger one that Nino could see inside enough to identify as the bathroom.

"It's kind of small," he said.

"Well, isn't that the point?" Sho replied. He didn't sound all that much happier about it.

Ohno bumped elbows with Nino, smiling at him over the blue and gray stripes of his scarf. "Kazu-chan just needs to be more flexible, yeah?"

"Maybe," Nino frowned.

He went into one of the bedrooms- only a little larger than a tatami mat and holding nothing other than a futon- and dumped his bags unceremoniously on the floor. By the time he went back out to the living room, the film crew had made their way inside and were setting up the cameras that would record Arashi's five days within the cabin.

"We'd like to get you guys to give us some interviews before we start," the AD said.

Well, at least that activity was inside.

\--

Nino had thought that five days of missing his plans and doing 'group activities' suggested by his band mates was going to be somewhat torturous, but the truth of the matter was that it really wasn't so bad. Sho spent the morning reading a book on the couch while Aiba worked on memorizing lines, blanket half-strewn over his legs. Ohno fell asleep and his chin kept falling down to make contact with his chest. Jun even made some hot chocolate for all of them, which Nino sipped at- it warmed his body nicely, even after it had cooled to lukewarm and he was dragging the watery remains of marshmallows out of it with one finger.

"So who's first?" Sho asked, looking up from his book.

"What, to the bathroom?" Nino replied. "I don't think there's any order, but you better get in before Jun if you want any hot water left by your shower-"

"No, not that," Sho interrupted him, making a face, and Nino grinned down into the remains of his drink. "I mean to choose the group activity. It's not me. So who is it?"

Ohno's face lifted, revealing a groggy expression. "Oh. It's me, isn't it?"

"Is your activity group nap time?" Nino asked. He thought it sounded like a pretty awesome choice. And really, sitting around in comfortable silence with his group was rather enjoyable, too. Arashi had been together long enough to respect each other's space and quirks, and it was something that Nino was always reminded of when he was truly grateful for it.

Ohno stood up and popped the kinks out of his back. "Nn. I think my guest should be here soon, though."

It didn't really answer any questions, but Nino had learned a long time ago that trying to get information out of Ohno rarely netted any profit. He just went back to his DS, breezing through a few more levels while they waited for Ohno's guest of choice to arrive.

It turned out to be his painting instructor from the last gallery he'd had an exhibition at. Sho looked dubious at the idea of 'group art lessons', but the tension from his shoulders seemed to slip away when the man set up the easels after moving the couches around.

"So, painting?" Nino asked, sitting down on one of the stools and spinning himself in a half-circle across the surface.

"I thought it would be fun for everyone to do together," Ohno said, with all his usual ease. There was a second of silence, and then he looked over at Nino with eyes a bit wide. "It's a good idea, right?"

He looked genuinely concerned, though a bit late, that his idea might have been a bust. Nino just smiled up at him. "It's a good idea."

Ohno seemed soothed by Nino's reassurances, and they watched Ohno's painting instructor set up the rest of the easels, and the still-life in the center of it all.

"That's what we're painting?" Sho asked, ducking down to frown at the bottom part of the set-up.

"I love painting!" Aiba said. He took a seat at his own easel and rubbed his palms together eagerly, grinning the whole time that the instructor- Yamasaka-san- put the finishing touches on the slightly wobbly pillar of plastic fruit.

Nino watched Ohno as the instructor placed canvases on the easels; the other man's face was open and relaxed. It seemed just facing the idea of art that the lines seemed to disappear from Ohno's face around his eyes. He was completely in his element, at home and comfortable, fingers sliding over the brushes in a loving, gentle manner. He looked as if he'd been transported to a whole new world, a world where he knew the contours and edges, where he could blur them as he pleased and drag them across the other paint lines.

It was nice to see his band mates like that- in their element- and Nino was suddenly fiercely glad for the programming decisions made by NHK.

"We're going to do some quick paintings today," Yamasaka said.

"Quick paintings?" Jun asked, frowning; he was no doubt already thinking of all the ways he could labor over it for longer than allowed.

Yamasaka handed Nino a set of brushes, and a piece of clear plastic with dried flecks of paint on the surface. "Just quick paintings. Don't worry about making it perfect- just allow yourself to paint like your hands want to."

Nino thought it was more interesting to watch the others paint than it was to paint himself. Ohno worked with an efficiency that stemmed from years of practice, of knowing, large gestures without caring about mistakes. Aiba slapped paint on the canvas with reckless abandon and then spent a long time just brushing it back and forth, shaping and blurring it into blocky outlines. Jun spent the majority of his time biting his lower lip, working the skin up into puffy redness as he tried to get the angles just right and the shadows just so. And Sho's brow was furrowed into a myriad of lines as he struggled to make edges that weren't hopelessly wobbly.

Nino's own canvas was relatively bare, save for the oily backdrop he'd washed on, and he drew on a few shapes from the bottom of the pile, where green apples held up a large sunflower and a cluster of bright grapes.

He understood why Ohno liked to do it so much; it was relaxing. After awhile, he found he didn't care much that there were cameras watching them, or the AD talking on his phone in the background. Just dragging his paintbrush across the canvas was calming. There were so few calm spot in his life, sometimes.

Yamasaka told them to put their brushes down and stand up, so they could observe the other paintings that the group had done.

"I'm not even sure I care much what he says about mine," Nino commented, mostly to the camera, but Jun happened to overhear.

"Me either," Jun said, and the corners of his mouth quirked upwards. For a moment, they just smiled at each other, and then Nino ducked his head because Yamasaka was coming around the canvas to look at Nino's painting, and Jun's cheeks were pinking slightly.

\--

Sho's group activity took place the next day.

Nino had been a bit wary about it, because with Sho, he never quite knew what to expect. When he finished breakfast and the director told them they were ready to begin for the day, Nino was trying to get himself ready for a 3-hour lecture on the history of those little chattering teeth toys that walk across the table-top or something equally horrific.

Instead, he found himself staring at a guy with a keytar, pressing down soft chords with his fingers.

"What is this?" Nino asked aloud, before registering that the words had even left his mouth.

Sho, who was seated nearest to the instructor, looked up with a bright, sunny grin. "We're learning to play the keytar! Isn't this awesome?"

"Wow!" Aiba enthused. He got up close to the instructor, who didn't seem fazed by the sudden loss of personal space, and watched the man press down a series of synthesized notes. "Oh man, this is awesome! Can we work this into our next single?"

"Absolutely not," Nino said, at the same time that Sho said, "Of course we can!"

One of the camera men behind Nino choked back a laugh.

The instructor had actually brought enough keytars that they could get into partners and play around with them. Nino was paired with Aiba, who seemed to have way too much fun just pressing down mismatched chords and warbling them with the keytar's synthesizer settings. It sounded like a bad techno remix echoing in Nino's ears, but watching Aiba's laughter light up his face overrode the horrendous quality of the sound.

When he finally passed the instrument to Nino, Nino tested a few things out. He adjusted the settings on the engine, and then started to play a quicker, more upbeat version of Niji as well as he could, sorting out the notes from the piano music.

It wasn't until he'd gotten all the way through the chorus that he realized he'd been singing- without realizing it, words torn from his throat of their own volition- and that everyone else had stopped what they were doing to watch him.

He ceased playing, oddly and suddenly embarrassed.

"Sorry," he said.

"Don't be," the keytar instructor replied.

Ohno was beaming at him from across the room, hands poised on the keytar that he and Jun were sharing. "Kazu-chan, that was wonderful," he said.

It just made Nino feel even more uncomfortable, despite the pleased sensation bubbling up from his chest. He shrugged the strap off and handed the instrument back to Aiba, who stared at it with a mixture of wonder and appreciation.

"Anyway," Nino said, trying to diffuse the situation as best he could, "let's hear what you guys came up with."

Ohno's little jingle was complete with a song about fish. Aiba still couldn't get much out, but what he did bang through he did with so much wild energy that everyone ended up clapping along. Jun seemed annoyed at his lack of ability to get anything resembling a real song they'd recognize out, but Aiba ended up leaning over and making up words to Jun's tune, and the end result had Jun smiling.

Sho, in a surprise that Nino hadn't seen coming, managed to do a pretty good rendition of Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor. It sounded pretty cool with the synthesizer settings turned up, and Nino was proud when he finished.

"You've learned a lot," he said, and he wasn't talking about the keytar: he'd known Sho was taking piano lessons recently, but hadn't quite realized how much time the other man was devoting to it.

Sho looked pleased. "Thanks. I mean, it's hard, but I feel like I've come a long way."

As the instructor started packing up to leave again, Nino poked Sho's shoulder.

"Dork," he said. "Don't keep things like this from us. We need to know you don't fail at everything, after all."

"Okay," Sho promised. He seemed happy. "I will."

\--

That night, Nino couldn't get to sleep. The futon wasn't his own and it was difficult to get comfortable, and the wind was blowing in an unfamiliar fashion outside his window. After an hour of restless tossing and turning, he got up and wandered out in to the kitchen. He was surprised to find that he wasn't the only person having trouble sleeping.

Jun poured him a cup of hot chocolate.

"It's hard to sleep here, isn't it?" Jun said, and it was more statement than question. Nino was glad he hadn't even had to say anything. Jun had always been good at reading people like that.

He glanced down at the mug on the table. "You even put little marshmallows in it."

"That's the best part," Jun replied.

They sat in companionable silence at the kitchen island for awhile, sipping at their drinks.

"I just keep thinking about everything else I should be doing," Jun admitted, without prompting. When Nino looked up, Jun was staring off at the fireplace, which was dark and unlit. He seemed lost in his own world. "There's so much to do, and as much as I like being here with you guys..."

"... it's hard to cut out everything else?" Nino supplied.

"Yeah," Jun sighed. He met Nino's gaze and shrugged a little. "You know how it goes."

Of course Nino did. Dramas and movie filmings and concerts and maybe he knew it better than anyone else did. He didn't say this; the hot chocolate was warm in his hand and pleasantly warmed his throat, and if he listened to the wind howling outside the cabin, it sounded a bit like music playing softly in the background.

"At least we can do this sort of thing together at all, right?" Nino volunteered.

Jun smiled, then. "Yeah. You're right."

"Of course I am," Nino scoffed, and raised his mug. "To Arashi."

"And the next ten years," Jun said, following suit. When Nino took a long drink, it tasted sweeter than he remembered.

\--

Aiba's activity was- in true Aiba fashion- making balloon animals. Nino wasn't even sure where he'd gotten an instructor to teach them how to do it, but somehow he had; he figured he really needed to stop marveling when Aiba accomplished something ridiculous, because his brain just couldn't handle the strain.

The instructor, named Kiritaka, brought an entire package of long balloons and showed them how to blow them up with enough space left so they could be manipulated. Then he taught them a simple dog with only four twists and turns, and a slightly more difficult crown that used two balloons tied together.

Aiba sat with his crown on his head and managed to pop no less than six balloons in his enthusiasm. Ohno made something that probably could have been bought by the MOMA, and when Nino asked what it was supposed to be, Ohno just shrugged and said, "Maybe a person chopping down trees with an axe."

Nino spend most of his time constructing a giant hammer which he then used to bop all his band mates on the head with, until Jun got annoyed and threatened to sit on it.

\--

The day that was Nino's for group activity time couldn't have ended up being better. It started snowing early in the morning, adding to the snow that was already covering in the ground in typical Hokkaido fashion, making the whole day seem a little surreal. It also meant that the air outside was even colder than it had been, which was the unfortunate part.

The others gave Nino strange looks when they were told they'd need their winter gear for the day's activities.

"I figured you'd pick something like a gaming session," Jun said, shrugging on his coat.

"Too predictable," Nino said. "Besides, we can do that at home."

Aiba's hat had a furry ball at the end that stuck straight up in the air, making him look a bit like a Moogle. "So what are we doing, then?"

"A no-holds-barred snowball fight, complete with forts and flags," Nino told them.

"You have got to be kidding," Sho laughed.

Nino raised both eyebrows. "I rarely am. This is a very competitive activity."

"We only have five people," Sho pointed out. "How are we going to have two teams?"

As if on cue- and Nino was rather pleased with that- a car started up the drive, going slowly with the snow that had drifted across the road during the night. Nino waved at the darkened windows.

"There's my guest now," he said.

The rest of his group waited in silence as the figure got out of the car, pulling a winter hat over his head and started across the snow towards them.

"You picked _Kamenashi_ to be your guest?" Jun asked.

Kame gave them all a little wave when he reached Nino's side.

"He's got a 93 mile an hour fast ball that makes it inside the strike zone," Nino said, gesturing with his thumb at his kouhai. "If you were throwing small round objects of tightly packed snow, who else would you want on your team?"

Sho looked a little pale. "Oh."

Nino cocked his head to one side and shrugged. "Also, he's one of the only people who regularly and routinely answers my phone calls."

"I call dibs on Nino and Kame's team," Aiba cried.

"Dammit," Jun grumbled. Kame gave Nino a grin complete with the tip of his tongue poking out from the side of his mouth, and reached down to pick up a handful of snow.

"Packs well," he commented, molding the white into a round ball. "Dense, too."

Sho was staring at the snowball in Kame's hands with what appeared to be rapidly mounting horror.

"So," Nino said, cheerily, "I guess this means you guys should start building your fort. You've got half an hour before the game starts. And the camera crew will be watching to make sure nobody cheats by saying the snowball didn't actually hit them."

Ohno, Jun, and Sho shared one long glance, and then ran off towards the far side of the cabin like the devil himself was on their heels. Sho was even flailing his arms a bit to either side in an obvious panic.

"Heh," Nino laughed. "Suckers."

"I suppose packing them with ice is cheating," Kame said.

Nino tugged on his gloves and wound his scarf tighter around his neck to keep the biting wind from assaulting his exposed skin. "Is it? I don't remember saying anything about that."

"Oh, good," Kame replied. "Because there's some ice chunks over by the driveway where they cleared a path for me."

They both turned to Aiba, who was sort of staring at them with his mouth hanging open.

"I am really glad I'm on your team," Aiba said, slowly, and Nino just threw the half-formed snowball he'd been working on at his teammate before the three rushed off to find the best ice chips to stash in the middle of their barrage.

\--

They ended up winning handily. Sho didn't stand a chance when Kame started launching snowballs at him from behind one of the bare trees, and Ohno gave a valiant effort lunging for their flag until Nino pelted him with several well-aimed missiles. Jun lasted the longest, but he got cornered when Kame and Nino surrounded him and let Aiba come from behind the fort with a surprise snowball to the face. By the time they were done, they were all soaking wet and freezing, but Nino hadn't been in such high spirits for a long time.

As they trickled back into the cabin in varying states of disarray, the snow was coming down harder in big, fat flakes that stuck to everything.

\--

The evening found the snow coming down too hard and too fast for Kame to get back to the airport. Nino made them both more of the hot chocolate and they stood in the kitchen watching it come down outside the window pane.

"Well," Nino said. "Hope you didn't have anything to do tomorrow."

"Nah," Kame replied. "Nothing that can't get moved around until later in the afternoon."

The snow was sticking to the shutters of the cabin and obscuring everything, so that Nino could barely see to the trees in the yard.

"Thanks for coming," he said.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kame's mouth turning up a bit at the sides, as the other man sipped his mug. "Anytime," Kame responded.

"I mean it," Nino added, in case the other man didn't know; he was terrible with gratitude sometimes.

"So do I," Kame said. For a long moment, he met Nino's gaze and held it, biting his lower lip, and Nino wasn't sure what all was held there.

Nino coughed, half-laughing and half just trying to find his bearings again. "Hey, let's go wake Aiba up enough to get him out on the couch, and then tomorrow we can convince him that he was sleep-walking and you figured you'd just take his futon since he wasn't using it."

"Okay," Kame nodded. The two tip-toed over to Aiba's door, and Nino put one finger to his mouth. After plastering themselves on the wall outside like spies, or ninjas, or maybe even ninja spies, Nino slowly opened the sliding door to Aiba's room.

"Aiba-chan, you should-" and then he stopped abruptly, because Aiba's futon was empty.

He shut the door very quickly, eyes wide.

"I don't even want to know," he said. "Oh my god, I so do not even want to know."

He pushed Kame somewhat roughly into his own room, and even though he couldn't hear anything from the other rooms, his brain thought it could. It was no doubt just the howling of the wind outside again, but he pressed his hands over his ears.

"Gah," he moaned, squeezing his eyes shut. "Oh, I don't want to know."

"I can just go out on the couch," Kame pointed out, eyes flickering towards the door that Nino had practically thrown shut behind them.

Nino sighed, if a bit dramatically. "There are no blankets out here. You'll just have to sleep in here with me."

"You were going to let Aiba-kun sleep out there," Kame said.

"Yeah, well, that's Aiba," Nino replied, answering nothing at all. He slid into the futon and hissed at the cold sheets, hoping they would warm quickly against the skin of his legs where his sweatpants were pushed up. "C'mon, it's freezing."

The futon was pretty warm with the both of them, which was nice given how cold it was outside. Nino didn't even mind that Kame wasn't wearing socks, and every time his toes grazed Nino's calf, he got a shock that felt like ice.

"Still gonna teach me how to throw that sliding change up, right?" Nino mumbled into the pillow case.

"Like you ever could," Kame replied.

Nino grinned into his arm, and drifted off thinking about baseball. He woke up the next morning with Kame's hair in his mouth, and Kame's arm tangled up around his waist, but there were definitely worse things.

\--

The next day found Nino staring at Jun over the kitchen island, elbows propped up against the material and chin rest in his palms, after the crew had decided that the snow had been cleared enough to allow Kame to take off.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Jun asked, eyebrows furrowed. He seemed fidgety under Nino's gaze, which was obviously a sure-sign of guilt. Guilt that his futon had not been occupied with just his own body last night.

"Nothing," Nino replied. "Just... observing, is all."

Jun didn't say anything else, but he looked a bit huffy as he pulled out various pots and pans from the kitchen cabinets, setting them all out on the countertop.

"What are you doing?" Sho asked, emerging from his room while running a hand through his hair.

"My activity is cooking," Jun explained. "We're making udon noodles."

Ohno looked cheered at the prospect of food.

"Our last day out here and you're making us do all this work?" Nino said, just to complain, and got a dish towel to the face.

It didn't end up being bad at all. Jun's guest was a chef from a small udon place in Sapporo who taught them how to roll the dough flat and then split it into strips for the noodles all by hand. It was fun to get the flour and dough on his hands- even if halfway through the activity Aiba covered his fingers and chased the others around the kitchen threatening to get the dough in their hair.

The best part about it was that at the end of it all, they had dinner for that night. Home cooked food always did taste better than the hamburgers Nino picked up from the conbini.

"So," Sho started, mouth full of udon, "I think we're supposed to say what we learned on this trip."

"I learned that the keytar is a really weird instrument," Nino said.

"And I learned that Nino cheats during snowball fights," Jun added, twirling a noodle around with his chopsticks.

Nino snorted into his broth. "Wasn't cheating."

"I learned to make udon," Ohno said.

"A good life skill, to be sure," Sho replied.

They sat in silence for a few moments, with only the sound of chopsticks hitting the bowls filling Nino's ears.

"Well," Nino started. "I guess it was a success, then."

He met Jun's gaze over the island, and the other man's expression was warm.

"I guess it was," Jun agreed.

\--

Nino wasn't exactly unhappy to be leaving the cabin; he really did want to get back to his own bed and with Countdown happening in only a few days, he had things to prepare and choreography to go over in the studio. But there was still an element of sadness as they trudged back to the company van with their luggage, shuffling through the snow that had accumulated outside on the grass during their stay.

"Seriously, though, couldn't they have invested in a nicer car to take us to the airport?" Nino complained, tossing his bag into the trunk of the vehicle on top of Jun's rolling duffel.

"I guess they think the drive gives us more time to bond," Sho said.

Nino opened the side door, wincing at the long, hissing noise the track made. "What bonding time? Ohno will sleep on my shoulder and drool on my coat, Aiba will get bored halfway through and start some game and it'll annoy all of us, you'll be deeply engrossed in reading some famous biography of the guy who invented the cheese wheel, and Jun..."

He glanced at Jun, who had one eyebrow raised up to his hairline.

"Well, Jun will probably just be going over scripts and crap from the upcoming performances," Nino finished.

"Isn't that how we always bond?" Aiba asked. He was smiling.

"Maybe," Nino sighed. "I suppose you might be right."

As they climbed into the van and strapped themselves in, Aiba pulled out the one balloon animal he'd managed to save, which looked a bit deflated but otherwise intact. "Merry Christmas!" he made the dog say.

"Yeah, yeah," Nino said, slapping the balloon away when Aiba got it too close to his face. "Merry Christmas. Now let's just skip to the part where we all take a nap."

There was a chorus of agreements, and one of the crew members shut the van door with a resounding thud.


End file.
